Thursday, February 21, 2008

Hilarity ensues on some of the tracks found on this soundtrack such as "Vampire," by a previously unknown group(by me) called Antsy Pants. The chosen songs are definitely within the tones of the movie: Comedy, love, a punch in the gut, and heart wrenching goodness. The Kimya Dawson tracks really have that innocent folky sound which I think is analogous to Ellen Page's character in the movie while playing the guitar. These songs really set the mood.

I found this snipet on slashfilm.com review. The director had this quote on there:

“At one point, I asked Ellen Page before we started shooting, ‘what do you think Juno listens to?’ And she said ‘The Moldy Peaches’. She went on my computer, played the songs, and I fell in love with it. Diablo and I discussed putting a Moldy Peaches song in it where the characters would sing to each other. I got in touch with Kimya Dawson of The Moldy Peaches and she started sending me her work, which was beautiful, and that became a lot of the soundtrack.”

On the same review the author provided a quote by Kimya Dawson, I thought this was cool:

“Some of those songs were recorded in my bed in Bedford Hills, under the covers, on the 4-track. And when people were coming up to me telling me I did a great job it felt weird because I didn’t do a job. I wrote a bunch of crap when my heart was hurting. Everyone else had to do a job. The songs were already there. Just floating around in space. I didn’t do anything specifically FOR the movie. Except record some instrumental versions of a couple songs that only have two chords. That was easy. so, yeah…”

There are also other strong performers in here like The Kinks, Buddy Holly, Belle & Sebastian, Sonic Youth, Cat Power, The Velvet Underground, and The Moldy Peaches. Some of these choices seemingly make the outfit a lot like a Wes Anderson soundtrack. I mean that in the sense that you'd find Mark Mothersbaugh and then a few other littered tracks by some popular and not so popular acts. Here Kimya Dawson's music creates that analog to Mark Mothersbaugh. Still very different types of selections within each soundtrack.

On the last track you even get to hear Michael Cera and Ellen Page's rendition of "Anyone Else But You" which is charming to the slurpee power. Seriously a lot of these songs are made of the essence which defines "extreme cuteness without deliberate repugnance." Maybe thats subjective. I dig this though. I confess.